Holte caps steller Kirksville career with record season, player of the year

Sunday

Jun 15, 2014 at 12:00 PM

Paul Halfacre Sports Editor @phalfacre_kde

KIRKSVILLE - The Kirksville Lady Tigers advanced farther in the postseason than any team in the school’s history. With a second place in the district there were a lot of contributors to help the Lady Tigers make that run.

There was Jordyn Allen’s 21 assists and nine goals. Bailey Guiles helped guide the team in the midfield with an over 50 percent passing completion and her seven goals and eight assists. Emily Schwend had a 20-20 season with 21 goals and 25 assists.

But the 2014 Daily Express Player of the Year was the Lady Tigers’ go-to playmaker from the start of the year until the end.

Kallie Holte.

“Definitely the best player in Kirksville soccer history and just a phenomenal athlete and a phenomenal goal scorer that brought leadership to the team,” Kirksville head coach Shawn Meintz said. “It’s an amazing career and she’s a great girl who deserves the award.”

Some scorers are described as sparks for the team and a person to rally around. Holte was that and more as she accounted for a school single-season record of 51 goals this season.

Holte broke her own record of 48 that she previously set her junior season.

Holte set a personal goal before the season started that she was determined to break her record and she accomplished that.

“It’s good that I accomplished it,” Holte said. “When the season started I knew I wanted to break my record.”

All told, Holte holds the school career record with her 123 career goals over the four years at Kirksville.

“Her 123 career goals is a ridiculous number and I would not imagine that career-goal total will be matched anytime soon,” Meintz said.

Despite holding that lofty record, Holte wants to see her record matched or broken sometime in the future.

“I have a goal record but I hope somebody comes in and beats it,” Holte said.

Holte helped the Lady Tigers to a lot of accomplishments over her career and this season, more than just scoring a lot of goals.

“She did a lot more than just score goals and that’s a big part, too,” Meintz said. “The second place finish in districts is the best we’ve ever done and we beat Moberly three times in the course of the season. We did some great things. The 92 scores is the most ever in a season and we only allowed 42 goals.”

Over the past four years, Kirksville has enjoyed the play of Holte as she reset the scoring record week in and week out, but Holte knows that if it weren’t for her teammates that she wouldn’t have come close to any of those accomplishments.

“It really helped that we’ve played together since we were 7 years old and we knew how to play with each other and we played 3-v-3 which is like a fast way of soccer,” Holte said. “It really helped to be on the field with each other. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have gotten as many goals.”

With all the accomplishments and accolades to her and her teammates, Holte will leave Kirksville with a little bitter taste in her mouth missing out on the one goal that they didn’t reach this season.

“I think this season we did really well, we accomplished lots of things but everybody on the team wanted to have a district title because we don’t have anything on the banner and we wanted something on that banner,” Holte said.

Holte will now take her natural scoring abilities off to Central College in Pella, Iowa. Already she’s eyeballing the Dutch scoring record as a personal goal for her as well as helping her team in any way she can.

“I hope to beat their record,” Holte said. “I think I can help by scoring goals, motivating my team and going out fierce.”

Holte’s 51 goals in a season for Kirksville was one off from Central’s state record of 52 set by Tori Rittman from 2004-07.

“I think it’s a bright future for her. It’s a good school, they’ve got a good soccer program and I’m glad it’s close enough where we can go watch her play,” Meintz said.